What could someone possibly do if they gain admin access to a POS? Is this a Windows CE system where someone could run arbitrary code? Or is this a bespoke system where the admin password just gives you access to the settings of the system? The article mentions staff using a POS server to play games and download porn on but that is a server probably running Windows Server with some POS server software from the vendor. Rather than just making fun of the name, these guys should explain what exactly does the admin password get you.

Getting access to the network is something different. You could update every POS terminal out there with your own code to steal CCs or crash every terminal on Black Friday.

Virginia Tech does have the Corporate Research Center, CRC, where a bunch of companies have set up remote offices where companies hire students for coops, internships, and actual jobs. I don't know off hand how many jobs that place has created but I do know of a lot of the companies that come to Virginia Tech during career fairs do have small offices there although a lot of other companies are strictly located mostly in Northern VA with a few in Roanoke.

I think they are relying on people to accidentally forget to confiscate the devices when leaving secure areas or the malware is waiting for some other way to communicate out of the network. Recently, a researcher showed how he was able to move data (albeit, very slowly) between two air-gapped machines just using temperature changes of both infected machines. Something using built-in speakers and mics of two machines could also move data using ultrasonic audio. If this is a targeted attack looking for a specific piece of information, a private key perhaps, you wouldn't need to transfer the information very long before someone notices.

All of these air-gapped exploits pretty much rely on people clicking things they shouldn't or plugging things in to other things they shouldn't but the hard part is getting back out of the air-gapped network.

They are computer programmers, not computer engineers.

Lock the phone as in require a password to unlock. My phone is "locked" in my pocket but not with a password, its a slide to unlock kind of thing.

First offense for 20mph over the speed limit is $1050, second offense will probably net you a felony and a $3000 fine. I wouldn't exactly call that a weekend out for your average middle class person.

The email records extend to Dec 31, 2006. There are a couple days into Jan that you can click on but there are no emails on those days. If you bothered to actually click the link, you would have seen that he didn't publish anything that occured after the end of his term.

The device has replacable cassettes that contain the reagents for the testing. To develop a device like this only to have it capable of spreading infection would be an incredibly stupid oversight.

I'm guessing the target audience is medical workers in poorer countries with limited access to labratory equipment to test for these diseases. The local doctor can come to the village with their smartphone, this device, and a bunch of clean needles for it. The more mobile and cheaper medical equipment can be, the easier it is to care for people. This doesn't address the idea of safe sex though, its just a piece of test equipment.

I had a class this semester where the professor distributed homework in .docx format. LibreOffice had the worst time displaying even the simpler circuit diagrams that were made using Smart Art. Even if I converted the document to PDF, the screwed up formatting would carry over. I ended up finding out that Dropbox would convert any docx to PDF when you would preview the document in your browser. The formatting Dropbox would display was identical to how the document was displayed in MS Office so I would just save that PDF and work off of that.

On Linux, the problem was even more of a pain. Any of the .pptx he used in lecture would have really weird fonts (font size was either too big or too small) when I would open them in Libre. I found out that I didn't have any of the MS ttf fonts installed but even after installing those, the slides still weren't exactly right. These were both slides that he had made himself and slides that were given out from the publisher of our textbook.

Installation of enterprise versions of Office are incredibly easy. Pop in a disc or download the executable and run it. I believe its maybe just one prompt asking where you want to install it. After that, it just installs without any interaction.

But in reality, IT would just have an image to push to every machine that would include Office so install time is negligible.

Did you forget that Obama is a democrat?

Skilled worker [that costs too much for their profit margins].

Key point to remember, only the government has granted the right of free speech to you. Any other sort of organization that you belong to and have signed some sort of agreement with can still act against you for what you say.

If you fire from the ground, the birdshot will hit the ground near the same velocity that it left the barrel at. That's conservation of energy.